'Reckless, cruel irresponsibility': Rush barrister slams Telegraph

The barristers acting for Oscar-winning actor Geoffrey Rush in his defamation case against The Daily Telegraph have described the articles at the centre of the case as "the most recklessly irresponsible journalism" to come before the courts and accused a co-star who made sexual harassment allegations against him of telling "a lot of lies".

The high-stakes court battle between Mr Rush, 67, and Rupert Murdoch's Nationwide News, publisher of the Telegraph, entered its 14th day on Thursday as the parties' closing submissions continued. The trial is expected to conclude on Friday.

Senior counsel Bruce McClintock, SC, for Mr Rush, said on Thursday the "prerogative of the tabloid press" and specifically the Telegraph was to wield power without responsibility.

He said the newspaper had acted with "reckless and indeed cruel irresponsibility" in publishing two articles and a billboard poster in late 2017 accusing Mr Rush of "inappropriate behaviour" towards an unnamed co-star during the Sydney Theatre Company's 2015-16 production of King Lear.

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The co-star was later revealed to be Eryn Jean Norvill, 34, who played King Lear's daughter Cordelia opposite Mr Rush in the lead role.

Ms Norvill did not speak to the Telegraph for its stories and her off-the-record complaint to the STC was leaked to the newspaper by an unknown source. She agreed to give evidence for the newspaper in court after initially declining to do so.

Mr McClintock said the "destructive effect" of the articles was "appalling" and went beyond the effects on Mr Rush, who issued a vehement denial before the stories were published. The newspaper had also been asked not to publish the stories by the Sydney Theatre Company because Ms Norvill was "fragile".

"Did they care? Did they think about what they were doing? The answer is clearly no," Mr McClintock said.

He said the articles were "the most recklessly irresponsible journalism that has come before the [Federal] Court, or a court in this country".

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Barrister Sue Chrysanthou, who is also acting for Mr Rush, took the reins from Mr McClintock to deliver closing submissions to the court on the Telegraph's defence of truth.

She said Ms Norvill had told "a lot of lies" and "so many false stories she can't keep them straight". Ms Chrysanthou also criticised descriptions of Ms Norvill as a young actor or "inexperienced novice" at the bottom of the theatre hierarchy.

"She wasn't a baby. She was in her 30s," she said.

Ms Chrysanthou said it sounded like a "ridiculous silent film" to suggest Mr Rush made a series of lewd gestures towards Ms Norvill, including making hourglass shapes, licking his lips and bulging his eyes.

Of a submission by Tom Blackburn, SC, for Nationwide News, that Ms Norvill was speaking the truth because she had "no reason" to lie, Ms Chrysanthou said people lied all the time and it was not for Justice Michael Wigney to speculate as to what was going on in her mind.

“What could possibly be her motive to lie? Who cares! That’s not Your Honour’s job [to decide],” she said. His job was to "assess the evidence and form a view as to what is more probable than not".

Ms Norvill's evidence was "rife with contradictions, inconsistencies and recent inventions", she said, and needed to be assessed against "the sea of absent witnesses" who could have been called from the STC.

Ms Chrysanthou said actor Mark Leonard Winter, 35, who played the role of Edgar in King Lear and gave evidence he saw Mr Rush "cupping" Ms Norvill's left breast during a performance before an audience, as well as making a "boob-squeezing gesture" above her body in a "Three Stoogesey"-style skit during rehearsals, had "contradicted [Ms Norvill] ... in a number of serious respects".

Mr Winter has recalled Mr Rush touched Ms Norvill's left breast while Ms Norvill said it was the side of her right breast.

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Ms Chrysanthou said Mr Winter "clearly at no point thought that anything inappropriate had happened", and it was "rubbish" to suggest there was a generational or cultural divide between the older and younger actors as to what they regarded as appropriate in a workplace.

Ms Chrysanthou said it was "quite absurd" of Ms Norvill to suggest that the audience may not have seen Mr Rush grope her on stage. The audience had a "bird's eye view", she said.

"Member of the cast and crew would have seen it; the audience woud have seen it," Ms Chrysanthou said. "It would have made the scene a ridiculous farce."

If Mr Winter's account was accepted, "everybody" would have seen it, she added.

"Mr Winter's evidence does not help them at all. It makes it much worse for them," Ms Chrysanthou said.

Ms Chrysanthou said Justice Wigney should go further than finding the newspaper had not established on the balance of probabilities that key incidents had occurred, and should "nail the lie" and find they did not occur.

Mr Rush's lawyers say the Telegraph stories convey a string of false and defamatory imputations about the actor, including that he is a "pervert" and "sexual predator".

Nationwide News says those high-level slurs are not conveyed by the publications but, in the event the court finds they were conveyed, it relies on a defence of truth.

Mr Blackburn, for Nationwide News, said on Thursday "pervert" suggested a "Peeping Tom" or other deviant who engaged in bizarre or disgusting behaviour rather than someone who was simply "offensive".

The Telegraph had not suggested Mr Rush's behaviour was perverted, he said, and even if the articles did suggest he had engaged in sexual harassment they did not suggest he was involved in "sexual preying or predation".